Rigil's Reflections from a DS9 Newb...

[Rigil Kent]

And don't give up on the Ferengi.

Um ... too late? I didn't like them when they were introduced in TNG and nothing I've seen since then has changed that opinion. I'm one of those people who loathed that absurd Ferengi episode of ENT, and I can't help but to get a seriously racist vibe from the other characters (those "evolved" humans) directed toward them.

In general, I don't like their extreme capitalist portrayal either.

Someone on another board mentioned how the Ferengi were accused of being an anti-Semitic stereotype, and I have to say that that seems to be pretty accurate to me.

The Negus is kind of a weird character (I cringe at his giggle).

I recognized him as the Sicilian from The Princess Bride...

I'm not planning on abandoning it necessarily, although I can understand how someone might have changed the channel. Why is it that modern Trek shows require two full seasons to turn into something watchable? nuBSG had the characters down pat before the mini-series was over. *shakes head in disgust*

[evcake]

Quote:
The Negus is kind of a weird character (I cringe at his giggle).

I recognized him as the Sicilian from The Princess Bride...

I THOUGHT that was Wallace Shawn! What a waste of his talent. They hire such great actors sometimes, yet all that results is poo.

[Linda]

Although the Ferengi are not close to my favorite ST species, they at least are more alien looking than most. They are short, have very different heads and some wierd (to us) customs. Most of the Vulcan customs, we can admire, even envy. But say 'euww' to Frenegi customs like beetle snuff and females chewing the male's food. Their extreme capitalism can be annoying. I think they are GOOD aliens because they are MORE alien. There was one DS9 episode where Nog explains the concept of the Material Continuum - a sort of Ferengi philosophical outlook. That was very good...and humorous. I guess I am more intrigued than annoyed by the Ferengi. But I would pick a Vulcan or Romulan or even a Cardasian episode to watch over a Ferengi episode.

[evcake]

But say 'euww' to Frenegi customs like beetle snuff and females chewing the male's food.
Ooh...I feel sick.
Actually, I found the Ferengi sort of refreshing at first. Most "aliens" look pretty much alike. Tholians too. Love Tholians. Enough already with the bumps and braids.

[blacknblue]

They were making the Ferengi up as they went along. Seriously. As teh show progressed the Ferengi, particularly Quark, improved remarkably both in believability and in depth. Hang in there.

[Rigil Kent]

Well, I finished disc 4 a little bit ago. That's four episodes. Much better than the previous disc ...

Battle Lines was pretty good. It was fairly obvious from the get-go that the Opaka (sp?) was going to "died" based on her actions in the teaser (I still can't get over how long they are) so it wasn't a surprise when she "died." I'm really liking the look of the runabout, although I question why they didn't just take evasive maneuvers the first time when the satellite was charging up for a shot ... they had more than enough time to do so instead of just raising shields and continuing forward. Stupid Starfleeters. There was some really good interaction between the Reborn Opaka & Kira, but I didn't care much for the level of technobabble between O'Brian & Dax. Given how much I generally dislike technobabble though, that's not a surprise. I liked the less than happy resolution at the end of the episode in that the locals were still eager to fight, although I'd have liked to have seen how the Bajorans reacted to the loss of their spiritual leader.

The Storyteller was average to slightly above average. I liked Sisko's continuing baseball reference ("Not my first time at the plate") and that Kira didn't get the reference. There was some amusing Bashir/O'Brien interaction in this, and I chuckled at how much fun Bashir was having at the chief's expense. Very evocative of the Reed/Tucker friendship, which I loved on ENT. I thought the whole Dalroc (sp?) thing was pretty stupid, and every time they said "Sera", I heard the "Que sera sera" (or however it's spelled).

Progress was quite good, IMO. It seems clear that Dax is inching toward becoming the "Ship's Babe", what with another recurring character (in this case, Morn) being interested in her. I chuckled at seeing Hardcastle with the Bajoran nose thing. Can I presume that Bajorans have reversed names? Nerys (sp?) is the equivalent of her first name? Can't help but to like Hardcastle the Bajoran, even if he was full of crap sometimes. When Kira removed her "jacket", the first thing that occurred to me was "dammit. That's what they should have done with T'Pol in season 1 & 2 of ENT instead of that stupid ass carpet suit with the clearly fake boobs." I thought Kira made the right call at the end of the episode, and really hope that Hardcastle the Bajoran makes another appearance on the show. Mostly indifferent toward the Jake/Nog subplot though.

If Wishes Were Horses was mediocre, although I enjoyed the fact that it was aliens making a first contact instead of Starfleet. Scene with O'Brien reading a bedtime story to his daughter was cute, although I rolled my eyes at the initial Bashir/Dax interaction. Today, that'd be construed as sexual harassment on his part. Found Quark's almost contempt at Starfleet having another weird experiment failure to be mildly amusing. "Vulcans don't have the most active imaginations." Heh. Damage and T'Pol's "wet dream" immediately springs to mind. Kira's comment "picking up a subspace oscillation ... what the hell does that mean?" was unintentionally funny given how much I loath technobabble. I didn't care for the "think happy thoughts" resolution though.

[blacknblue]

Yes. Bajorans use inverted name order. Family name first, then personal name. So Kira is her surname.

[Reanok]

They don't know Vulcans at all T'Pol's dream about Trip In Damage is proof of that in fact she has more than one romantic dream about him in Bound when she said to Trip,Do you dream about me.trip admits he dreams about her .T'Pol & Trip and that kiss at the end go T'Pol. I liked Battlelines and progress and The storyteller. About the Beattle snuff I thought that was just gross and how they treated their women that food chewing that just yucky.

[JadziaKathryn]

What? Ferengi as an anti-Semitic stereotype? *ponders* I'm not seeing it. I very much see them as the Greedy-Capitalist stereotype, but anti-Semitic came out of left field for me, aside from the centuries-long connection between Judaism and banking.

[Linda]

I had heard that anti-Semitic label applied to the Ferengi in a couple of different places. I don't like that implication at all and hope that that was not the intention of the creators of the Ferengi. Extreme capitalists, yes, like the Klingons are extreme warriors - that I can accept, but not ethnic profiling. I think they flesh out the Ferengi culture traits enough in DS9 to make them more alien as a species then to give anyone grist for comparison to any real ethnic group. And then they have Rom and Nog breaking with the Ferengi tradition to enter the world of engineering and Starfleet command track careers. I loved that!

[JadziaKathryn]

I had heard that anti-Semitic label applied to the Ferengi in a couple of different places. I don't like that implication at all and hope that that was not the intention of the creators of the Ferengi. Extreme capitalists, yes, like the Klingons are extreme warriors - that I can accept, but not ethnic profiling. I think they flesh out the Ferengi culture traits enough in DS9 to make them more alien as a species then to give anyone grist for comparison to any real ethnic group. And then they have Rom and Nog breaking with the Ferengi tradition to enter the world of engineering and Starfleet command track careers. I loved that!

*shrug* On the one hand it was good, but on the other it felt a little bit like almighty-Federation-triumphs-over-barbarians-again! when... um, when Rom received his "promotion" in the finale.

[Linda]

Uh, I forgot about Rom being promoted to Negus in the end. I was focusing on his helping in engineering on the station and then on his creation of those self replicating mines. Hope I am not spoiling things for Rigil here. But it was good to see that some Ferengi are not all hung up on careers in business. Many Ferengi must have had other than business talents for how did they build spacecraft in the first place? Please don't tell me that they were non-technological people who managed to use their business acumen to trade for warp technology with the first space faring people who landed on their planet, LOL! They must have gotten out there on their own.

[Rigil Kent]

Well, I finished season 1 today. Overall, it was a pretty strong final four episodes of the first season (much, much better than the (IMO) crappy final four eps of ENT's first season.

The Forsaken started out bad and barely managed to claw its way to tolerability. I actively loathed Luxanna (or whatever her first name is) Troi from the episodes of TNG with her in them that I remember, and this was shaping up to be more of the same. I enjoyed seeing a Vulcan ambassador since the Vulcans are my favorite Trek species, and I loved the "Oh, crap" expression on Sisko's face when the ambassadors wandered into Ops. Troi was not quite as annoying as normal in this ep, although she only started to become tolerable when Odo started to lose it. I though the computer resolution thing was a little too easy and technobabbly, and the final thing with Bashir and the other ambassadors was nothing if not predictable. This wouldn't be on my list of episodes that I'd go back and watch over, but it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Dramatis Personae was pretty decent, although that's mostly due to some excellent acting on the part of the central characters. There was a very evident Mirror Universe type of atmosphere in this episode as this latest installment of "The Heroes Are Possessed By An Alien Entity" ep occurred, but that atmosphere worked well. The usual staple of an alien being immune was worth an eyeroll, but, in this case, it was fairly logical.

Duet was easily the best episode of the four and is, IMO, the best of the series to date. It was a little difficult for me to buy that Sisko would put Kira in charge of interrogating "Marritza/Gul Darhe'el" (sp?) since it was obvious from the get-go that she was too emotionally close to the case, but that was easily overlooked by the absolutely astounding acting taking place. Harris Yulin was absolutely fantastic as Marritza/Gul Darhe'el, and he really made me buy his character totally and completely. Nana Visitor, who has been fairly hit and miss for me, did an equally excellent job here.

Unfortunately, the season finale In the Hands of the Prophets wasn't anywhere near as engaging. I immediately disliked the religious zealot (Vedek Winn) and it was so blatantly obvious that Neela was the killer that it robbed her would-be assassination attempt of any emotional impact that it had. Compare this to the previous episode that keeps you guessing whether Yulin is Marritza or Gul Darhe'el. I didn't dislike the episode per se, merely found it a little bit on the anti-religion preachy side. Have to admit that Odo's sarcasm is really growing on me. "What was he doing on a runabout at four in the morning?" "Apparently, he was getting murdered."

Season 1 Overview: My general dislike of the 24th Century design aesthetic aside, s1 of DS9 has already been much more positive than I had anticipated. Yeah, there have been some serious stinkers in this season (The Nagus springs to mind), but the season ended on a fairly strong note ... something I honestly cannot say about Enterprise. Sisko is appealing more and more to me as a commanding officer than either Picard or Janeway or Archer ever did. This also feels like an ensemble show that isn't afraid to take the focus off of the "Captain/Commander" for an episode, something that ENT totally failed to do. I'm also glad to see that there hasn't been any character assassination thus far: no one has done something absurdly OOC and flat out stupid simply to move the plot forward (cough*Fusion*cough) As most people who are fans of this show say this is the weakest season, I find myself looking forward to season 2.

[CX]

Actually, having just watched this episode myself, I hope you didn't overlook the talk Sisko had with Jake about the religion issue in his office. I guess it lept out at me because it's exactly my philosophy, which isn't anti-religious, more, anti-zealot.

[JadziaKathryn]

Actually, having just watched this episode myself, I hope you didn't overlook the talk Sisko had with Jake about the religion issue in his office. I guess it lept out at me because it's exactly my philosophy, which isn't anti-religious, more, anti-zealot.

And that, I think, is a realistic way to handle religion in Trek, especially if we're going with the idea that the Federation is more or less strife-free.

I haven't seen all of the episodes, but I agree with Rigil that overall DS9 has some terrific acting. I think the actor who plays Garak (Andrew Robinson, maybe?) is terrific in his recurring guest role.